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Dessert

Ginger Crisps

A sweet ginger cookie made with molasses, sugar, butter, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Crisps

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Combine molasses, sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until just boiling.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool.

  4. Dissolve baking soda in hot water and add it to the cooled mixture.

  5. Stir in ground ginger and ground cinnamon.

  6. Gradually mix in flour until the dough is stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

  2. Roll the dough very thin.

  3. Cut the rolled dough into cookie shapes.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until crisp.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep flavor, and moisture, and its acidity reacts with baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help it brown.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the cookies a tender texture and rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together when rolled and cut.
Ground ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie's flavor.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough loses moisture quickly in the oven, so it dries and crisps evenly. Thicker pieces stay soft in the center and may not turn crisp.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, butter, cinnamon, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, cinnamon, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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